Page 78 - Demo

Chapter 476Facial swelling and limited mouth opening occur as a response to surgical trauma after third molar surgery.59 The onset of swelling is gradual, with peak swelling occurring 48 h after surgery, but the swelling increases the third day after surgery and lasts until the seventh day. Another limitation of the present study was that facial swelling was not measured, but reported on the OHIP14 questionnaire. Previous studies have evaluated postoperative swelling by measuring three linear facial distances,20,21 a tape measure method,27 or 3D face scanning.28 A limitation of the present study is that we used the OHIP-14 scores to subjectively assess postoperative swelling. However, all of the different methods for assessing the degree of postoperative swelling may not be more accurate than the estimations made by patients themselves.4 As stated by Happonen et al., there is no objective way to assess the degree of intraoral swelling, which is experienced by the patients as being at least as unpleasant as extraoral swelling.60However, the greatest limitation of the study is the number of participants which limits the number of subsequent complications after surgery. The study also is not applicable across broad populations due to the number of participants and the recruiting restrictions in the design. Although a sample size calculation showed that the number of patients included in the study was sufficient for a reasonable power, further research is necessary to assess the usefulness of the iodine tampon for broad populationsConclusionWithin the limitations of this study, we conclude that the administration of an iodine-containing tampon positively improves the OHRQoL. Therefore, clinicians should take this intervention into consideration in order to reduce the postoperative inconveniences perceived by patients following the surgical removal of impacted mandibular third molars.